Fractional CISO & vCISO Services
Accountable security leadership without the cost of a full-time hire.
Most organizations at the $15M–$150M stage don’t need a full-time Chief Information Security Officer. They need experienced security leadership that shows up with authority, understands risk, and can be held accountable for outcomes without the overhead of a permanent executive hire.
Keystone provides fractional CISO and vCISO services embedded directly into your leadership team. Not a consultant with a report. Not a managed security vendor. An executive who owns the security function and is accountable for results.
What a Fractional CISO Does
A Keystone fractional CISO assumes executive responsibility for your organization’s security posture. That means:
- Security controls are designed and enforced proportional to actual business risk
- Risk is made visible, documented, and manageable not dramatized
- Incidents are handled with control rather than panic
- Compliance obligations are met and maintained SOC 2, HIPAA, NIST, ISO 27001, GDPR, and others
- Board and investor reporting reflects real security posture, not theater
- Internal teams are strengthened, not displaced
The goal is not to eliminate all risk. The goal is to make risk understood and manageable so the business can move forward with confidence.
Why Keystone Is Different
Most vCISO firms deliver security leadership in isolation. A security executive who has no authority over technology decisions, no visibility into architecture choices, and no seat at the table when infrastructure decisions are made.
That creates a gap. The compliance deadline arrives and the security leader needs something changed but does not own the systems. The enterprise customer asks a question that spans security and technology and no single person can answer it. The board wants risk visibility but risk lives across both domains.
Keystone eliminates that gap by design.
The same executive who owns your security posture owns your technology governance. Security decisions are made with full context. Not handed off. Not negotiated. Not delayed. When your architecture changes, security changes with it. When a compliance obligation lands, the person accountable for the response also controls the environment it lives in.
This is not how most fractional CISO engagements are structured. It is how Keystone works.
When a Fractional CISO Is the Right Answer
Organizations typically engage a fractional CISO or vCISO when:
- A compliance deadline is approaching SOC 2, HIPAA, SOX, or a customer requirement
- Investor or board scrutiny around security is increasing
- Enterprise customers are asking harder questions before signing
- An incident exposed how unprepared the organization was
- There is no one accountable for security at the executive level
If any of these are true, the right response is not another vendor relationship. It is accountable executive leadership.
Engagement and Transition
The Keystone fractional CISO engagement operates under a defined mandate with clear authority. Regardless of duration:
- Security operations are stabilized and normalized
- Risk decisions are documented and defensible
- Internal capability is strengthened
- Dependency on Keystone is avoided by design
Success is measured by a clean exit and a security posture that holds under scrutiny.
Keystone does not provide virtual CISO services as an advisory layer. It provides fractional executive security leadership — accountable, embedded, and built to last.